Sadly, he figured he might as well get ready for bed. For as long as he could remember he had had a witch living under his bed. He had never told Father about it because he didn’t want him to kill her, make her imaginary. Usually he hopped into bed from a few feet away, out of her reach. But tonight he got down on his hands and knees to look for her. There was now nothing under his bed but dust. He was wondering if he still had his old nightlight around somewhere when—
“Boo!” The bedroom door burst open, and a man with a Moby Grape T-shirt and a paper grocery bag over his head jumped into the room. “Well? Did I scare you?”
“Boogeyman, you’re back! Cool, I’m so glad to see you. Come on in.” Then Jonathan remembered the game his friend wanted to play. “I mean — whoa, you scared me.”
“Yeah, right.” The Boogeyman pulled off the paper bag and walked over to the window. “I should’ve known that wasn’t going to work. Trying to scare this kid without my powers is like trying to stop a stegosaurus with a broken BB gun. Still, hope springs eternal — cuz hope is a damn fool.”
“I was afraid you were gone for good,” Jonathan told him, “that you weren’t ever coming back.”
“Ironic choice of words there, kid. If you were really afraid I was gone for good, then of course I would be gone — out terrifying the prepubescent population better than anybody else in the history of Boogeydom. No, you thought I was gone for good, and so did I. But the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune are not done pricking me yet. Get this.” The Boogeyman sat down in the desk chair.
“I call up Santa — my old buddy Kris Kringle, right? I say hey, my friend, I’m in a bit of a bad spot here, can you come give me a lift back to L.A.? And he says sorry, BM, can’t do it, the reindeer are all getting shod tonight. Can you believe that — getting shod. What do they need shoes for? They fly, for God’s sake. No, the truth is he just doesn’t want to be seen with an unemployed loser. Nobody — not even Father Christmas — loves you when you’re down and out.”
“You know Santa Claus? He’s real?”
“Yes, yes, and no way, forget it. Yes, I know him. Yes, he’s real — for now. Someday he’s going to meet a kid somewhere who’s not overcome with joy or greed or whatever it is at the sight of him, and then he’ll be just another overweight elderly man with a loud suit, a frigid wife, and a hefty Purina Reindeer Chow bill. And no way, forget it, I’m not going to slip him your Christmas list or put in a good word for you. Not that a good word from me would help you much. I’m nobody — the big Boogeyflop. Oh, I called my agent, too, but he wasn’t taking any calls. Now there’s a big shock for ya.”
“So what are you going to do?” Jonathan asked him. “You can stay here if you want to, you know. I’ll sleep on the floor, I don’t mind. You can have the bed.”
“Thanks, kid, you’re too kind. But I’ve got a ride coming — the Tooth Fairy.” The Boogeyman laughed, but Jonathan could tell he didn’t really think it was funny. “Can you believe it? Me, the fearsome frightful Boogeyman forced to hitch a ride on the molar express. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”
“The Tooth Fairy’s coming? here? tonight?” The Tooth Fairy had never come to see Jonathan Frederick Johnson III before, even when his baby teeth fell out. He figured Mother and Father probably scared him — or her — away.
“Yeah, and I have to wait for him here if you don’t mind. He can’t go into grownups’ rooms for some reason. Tooth Fairy union rules, I guess. Listen, I need just one more favor from you, kid. I need you to go to sleep. Timothy won’t come around when a kid’s awake. It’s a real phobia with him — I think he’s afraid he’ll be mistaken for a mosquito and get swatted or something. Anyway, if you’ll go see the Sandman, I’ll try to keep my sobbing at minimum decibels, and I’ll sit way over here so the stench of rotted dreams and utter abject failure won’t disturb you.”
“Well, okay.” Jonathan Frederick Johnson III wasn’t at all sleepy, but he pulled the covers up and laid his head down on the pillow. All was quiet for about a minute and a half; then the Boogeyman started talking, softly at first, then gradually louder. Jonathan sat up in bed. There was a question he wanted to ask him.
“How come you only scare kids?”
“Are you kidding me, kid? I want you to listen carefully. In fact — here, take this.” The Boogeyman dug through Jonathan’s school supplies and tossed a notebook at him. “You can be my Boswell. Ready? I scared ’em all in my day — princes and presidents, kings and counselors, the high and the mighty, the brave and the meek, the proud and the prejudiced, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Just name somebody. If they’re alive, you can bet I’ve scared them. And if they’re dead, I probably scared them that way.”
“You mean grownups?”
“How many kid kings and kid counselors do you know? Yes, grownups. After all, grownups are just big kids — no, that’s almost a cliche. Change it to kids are just little grownups. You are getting all this down, aren’t you?”
Jonathan pulled the empty notebook back where the Boogeyman couldn’t see it. If he really expected him to write all this down, he shouldn’t be talking so fast.
“But how can you scare grownups if they can’t see or hear you?”
“Oh, they see me, all right. It’s just that they see a different kind of hobgoblin from the one you do. They see me as being late for work or short on the rent or unprepared for a presentation.”
“That doesn’t sound very scary.”
“Well, of course it doesn’t sound scary to you, Kid Fearless. But just the possibility of being late or unprepared scares the mess out of the middle-aged if you do it right — and buddy, you better believe I did it right. It’s subtler and more challenging than scaring kids. No two adults have the exact same bugaboos. You have to, as Jeeves would say, consider the psychology of the individual.”
Jonathan Frederick Johnson III quietly laid the notebook aside. There was no way he was ever going to be able to spell words like “psychology” and “individual.”
“Who is Jeeves? Is he a Boogeyman, too?”
“Never mind, I don’t know why I’m giving you these pearls of Boogey wisdom anyway.” The Boogeyman, who had been pacing around the room as he talked, now sank back down into the desk chair. “Why should I tell you — the tyke who toppled my empire — anything at all? Even if you had the maturity to appreciate the elegance and the artistry involved in frightening adults — which you don’t. Geez, where is Timothy, that damn cuspid hustler? I’m starting to feel like a doddering old fool in his anecdotage, sitting around the old Boogeys’ home telling war stories.”
“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Jonathan told his friend. “Let’s go scare a grownup right now. Let’s scare Father.”
“Yeah, right. It wasn’t just my pride and my dignity the big guy stripped me of, remember? I can’t teleport. I can’t transmogrify. There is not an ounce of Boogey left in this body. I’m an impotent imp. I couldn’t even startle a deer.”
“Well, you can still turn invisible like you did when you went to use the phone, right? Father didn’t see you, so you must still have some of your powers.”
“Oh, I get it. You want another chuckle at the poor old Boogeyflop’s expense. Very well, never let it be said that I disappointed an audience.” The Boogeyman stood up, and his voice got very big as he said, “Step right up, ladies and gentlemen. For one show only, I, the great Ozymandius, shall completely debase myself for your amusement. Gaze upon my works, ye mighty, and guffaw.”